ANOTHER JUDGE RULES AGAINST MARRIAGE BAN

Says U.S. law prohibiting recognition of gay marriages over benefits is unconstitutional

SAN FRANCISCO 
A judge in California has ruled the federal law that prohibits recognition of same-sex unions is unconstitutional because it denies long-term health insurance benefits to legal spouses of state employees and retirees.

U.S. District Judge Claudia Wilken also concluded Thursday that a section of the federal tax code that made the domestic partners of state workers ineligible for long-term care insurance similarly violates the civil rights of people in gay and lesbian relationships.

Both laws were based on what she called “moral condemnation” of same-sex couples.

“Congress’s restriction on state-maintained long-term care plans lacks any rational relationship to a legitimate government interest, but rather appears to be motivated by anti-gay animus,” Wilken wrote in ordering the California Public Employees’ Retirement System to allow current and former state employees to enroll their same-sex spouses and partners in the extended care plan.

Congress passed both laws that the Oakland-based judge determined to be constitutionally suspect in 1996, when the gay rights movement was beginning to push for the state and local benefits that come with marriage.

She is the second federal judge in California this year to conclude that the Defense of Marriage Act violates the due process rights of legally married couples of the same sex.

A San Francisco judge also declared the federal law unconstitutional in February in a separate case involving a federal court employee who married during the brief period when same-sex marriages were legal in California but was not allowed to add her wife to her regular employer-sponsored health care plan.

That ruling is under appeal and is scheduled to be heard by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in September.

“Lesbian and gay couples are entitled to fair and equal treatment from the federal government,” Elizabeth Kristen of Legal Aid Society-Employment Law Center, which sued the U.S. Treasury Department and California’s pension plan two years ago on behalf of three same-sex couples.

Lawyers representing a House of Representatives Committee who are defending the Defense of Marriage Act had no comment.